302 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1446 



month of conception, iback to Novemlier, 1920, 

 in wUdi month not only the value of the Amer- 

 ican dollar in marks but also the wholesale 

 prices of Geiman goods thereby affected 

 reached the maximum of the observation 

 period. Roesle thereiJore assumes that the 

 failure of the rational increase in the birth 

 rate for July, 1921 (conception month, Octo- 

 ber, 1920), to materialize is traceable to the 

 further increase in the cost of living which 

 followed the advance of the dollar and of the 

 wholesale prices of Grennan goods. In the 

 months of February and March, 1921, the cost 

 of living came down, and it is to be noted that 

 there was a corresponding inci-ease in the birth 

 rate for the months of November and Decem- 

 ber, 1921 (just nine months later). It could 

 not be shown that economic conditions exerted 

 a perceptible influence on the death rate. The 

 year 1921 shows the lowest recorded death rate 

 in German cities with more than 15,000 inhaJb- 

 itants; namely, 13.5 per thousand of popula- 

 tion, and excluding deaths among strangers 

 and transients, the death rate was only 11.9. 

 A comparison of the monthly death rates for 

 former years brings out the fact that during 

 the winter months of January, February and 

 March, 1921, especially favorable weather con- 

 ditions must have prevailed. The abnormally 

 mild winter was followed by an abnormally 

 hot summer, but the summer peak of infant 

 mortality did not reach the terrible percentage 

 of the summer of 1911. Also during the 

 autumn of 1921 the weather conditions were 

 favorable. These favorable weather conditions 

 prevailed elsewhere as well, so that favorable 

 death rates for the year 1921 are to be expect- 

 ed also from other countries. Only for the 

 month of December, 1921, was there a higher 

 death rate than for the corresponding month 

 of the previous year, which is explainaible by 

 the severe influenza epidemic. The rapid and 

 continued decrease in the death rate, since the 

 war, is due, for the most part, to the improve- 

 ment in the food situation. 



THE REDWOOD TREES OF CALIFORNIA 

 Dr. J. B. Grant, chairman of the board of 

 directors of the "Save the Redwoods League," 

 has issued a report, giving the history of the 



league which was organized four years ago. 

 The report, according to the New York Times, 

 states that the original redwood belt is a rem- 

 nant of the massive forests of this and related 

 species that in prehistoric times covered a con- 

 siderable part of the northern hemisphere. It 

 averages twenty miles in width and extends 

 some 450 miles from Monterey County, Cali- 

 fornia, to just above the Oregon line. In the 

 southern part of this belt, in Santa Cruz 

 County, as long ago as 1905, the State of Cali- 

 fornia established a state park, preserving what 

 is known as Big Basin, containing many mag- 

 nificent trees. Muir Woods, on the slopes of 

 Mount Tamalpais, has already been made a 

 national monument. And now, as a part of 

 the Save the Redwoods movement, the nucleus 

 of another state park has been preserved in 

 the northern portion of the redwood belt, in 

 Humboldt County, in the hasin of the south 

 fork of the Eel River and adjoining the Cali- 

 fornia State Highway. 



The Humboldt State Redwood Park, which 

 is the beginning of a larger area to be pre- 

 served, consists of about 2,000 acres, extending 

 fourteen miles along the California state high- 

 way, where it skirts the eastern bank of the 

 south fork of the Eel River, between Phillips- 

 ville and Dyerville. It contains perhaps 

 200,000,000 feet of some of the finest redwoods. 

 It is 230 miles from San Francisco on the 

 main state highway leading to Eureka, Cali- 

 fornia, and is administered for the state by the 

 California State Foresti-y Board. It is accessi- 

 ble through the year by train. 



One tract of redwoods saved by private do- 

 nation was Boiling Memorial Grove, which is 

 within Humboldt State Park. It was estab- 

 lished by Dr. John C. Phillips, of Massachu- 

 setts, in memory of Colonel Raynal C. Boiling, 

 one of the first American officers of high rank 

 to give his life in the World War. 



The establishment of Humboldt State Red- 

 wood Park is a part of the general movement 

 to save representative groves through the red- " 

 wood belt, particulaiily those along the "High- 

 way of the Giants," the state highway, leading 

 from the southernmost redwoods in Monterey 

 to the northernmost at the Oregon line. It is 

 in the northern region that a larger national 



